Mother Knows Best
by Second Star On The Left
Summary: Mother calls him Tommy when she's not in one of her moods, and pets his hair and tells him he's handsome, like him, but clever like her, which is more important. She calls him clever boy and kisses the tip of his nose and holds his face in her hands on the day she returns home to find her brother dead.
1. From the cradle

Tom Marvolo Riddle's earliest clear memory is from somewhere before his third birthday. He has other memories from his life before his and Mother's Return, but the one that sticks out with the greatest degree of lucidity is one of sitting on Mother's knee in a huge winged armchair, by a roaring fire that sparked green and blue from red flames, and Mother smiling down at him with a shine of something he would never admit to being madness in her eyes.

"He was never worthy of me, I see that now," she said, holding Tom close and rocking him gently. "You are handsome like him, my sweet Tommy, but you are clever, like me, a true Gaunt. Your father was typical of his kind, but you are more than him - you are greater than he could ever be."

Whether they are aware of it or not, Tom's mother's words on that rainy night when three Muggles lay dead in their beds upstairs, looking, to the Muggle police, as though they'd been frightened to death, will shape the wizarding world through him.

* * *

Tom is six the first time his mother's brother strikes him (he has no memory of his grandfather, which he later comes to realise means his mother put her remarkable expertise with potions to good use as soon as she could following their Return). On the same day, Tom brews his first potion - it is a small thing, an itching solution which he uses on his uncle's bedsheets and underclothes, but it works too well, and Mother smiles and ruffles his dark hair and tells him how clever he is.

Morfin hits him so hard that Tom can't see clearly for almost two days as soon as the hives die down, but it is more than worth it. The next time Morfin calls Mother a whore, Tom slips a potion into his soup that makes him blind for a week.

Tom doesn't love his mother - he respects her, because she is strong and brave and clever, as much as he hates her for ever being stupid enough to love his father in the first place - but he will not stand to see her disrespected and abused. She is worth a thousand of her wastrel brother, and Tom will ensure that Morfin knows that if it is the last thing he ever does.

* * *

Ministry officials come and go quite often - Morfin is constantly a fool, preying on Muggles for sport and praising himself as a hero worthy of recognition, rather than the cowardly fool that he is.

Tom reads about other Purebloods (because he hates that Mother forced this lesser status on him, and he will never claim the _muck_ of his father's blood in his veins), about the villains of history who have been forced into death or captivity for trying to prove what, to Tom, is the greatest of truths, learned at his mother's knee even before their Return - that Muggles are inherently inferior to wizards, that they are made to be subjugated because they are weak and foolish and so must be treated as such.

He admires Grindelwald very much - Grindelwald was a fool in some ways, too, and got a great many things wrong, but Tom thinks that it is a matter of refinement and a certain missing panache more than anything that was Grindelwald's problem. Tom sees the same problem everywhere, in the Pureblood families who still associate with his uncle, who look upon him like something they have scraped off their boot.

He loathes them, in a special sort of way, and vows that they, too, will feel his subjugation someday.

Tom is nine years old when he decides that one day, he will rule the world and everyone in it. He tells Mother, because he trusts her and none others, and she smiles and ruffles his hair and tells him that he is the only one clever enough to do such a thing.

* * *

Mother calls him _Tommy_ when she's not in one of her moods, and pets his hair and tells him he's handsome, like _him_, but clever like her, which is more important.

Her moods become more and more frequent, as do Morfin's. Mother's moods are strange - sometimes she is sad, and sits and looks out the window towards the Riddle House, tears brimming in her eyes. On those days, Tom makes certain that there is food on the table and that the house is neat, because Morfin will beat Mother if everything is not as it should be. Sometimes she is angry, and she storms about the house hissing about foul filthy Muggles and how they should be chained and caged and destroyed.

Sometimes she is not herself - literally not herself, as though she lives in a fantasy world where Tom's father loved her, loved him, married her and took her away from Morfin.

She calls him _clever boy_ and kisses the tip of his nose and holds his face in her hands on the day she returns home to find her brother dead. Tom is pleased that he was able to repay his mother in some little way by ridding her of her tormentor. Their lives improve greatly then - Mother has less of her distant not-Mother moods, less sadness and different anger, and she buys a little shop in London and begins to sell her wonderful potions. Tom loves Knockturn Alley, and Mother quickly gains a sort of grudging respect because of the sheer quality of her work. She gives Tom the ring Morfin always wore, the black stone that gleams so prettily in the shadowy light of their new home.

He thinks little of it, thinks it worth little thought, truly, but Tom is ten years old when he takes his first life, and it is one of if not the only life he will take in defence of another. It is unlikely that he will ever regard any other person beyond himself and his mother as worthy of the effort, even he would admit that if pressed, but for now it is merely that Morfin is a problem for himself and for Mother, and problems must be solved.

* * *

Hogwarts is more impressive than Tom would ever admit - he sits in his little boat with his aquaintances from home and watches curiously as they sail up to the castle, and even though his heart is beating hard and fast in his chest he forces himself to appear calm, to remain composed. The blood of Salazar Slytherin runs in his veins, after all, Mother reminded him of that over and over again, and he had more right than any of the other new arrivals to be here.

There were Mudbloods aplenty, that he knew, and he wrinkled his nose in disdain as one after another, other boys and girls were sorted into _Gryffindor Hufflepuff Ravenclaw, _watching only the Slytherins with any interest because they were to be his classmates, they were to be the ones with whom he would begin his conquest, his great work.

The Sorting Hat had not even touched his head before it bellowed _Slytherin! _for the whole of Hogwarts to hear, and a reserved cheer went up from the table under the silver-and-green. Tom smiles as he makes his way over - if only they knew who he really was - and settles beside Nott, who he knows from visiting Mother's shop with his grandfather.

He already likes Hogwarts, he thinks - he is glad that he doesn't have to worry about the Mudblood filth invading his house.

* * *

School is a parade of triumphs - opening the Chamber is tainted, of course, because he cannot truly purge the school, but at least he gets rid of that _bothersome _oaf, Hagrid, and other than that there is nary a blip on his path. He is the darling of every teacher, save Dumbledore, who seems to sense something about him that the other teachers miss. Even among the students he is popular, somehow, which he finds incredibly amusing because he has yet to find an equal at all among his peers - none of them come close to matching his intellect, his vision.

It particularly amuses him when a tangle of second or third year Hufflepuffs, some of whom he _knows _to be filth, stop whispering and blush when he walks past. The idea of them fancying him makes him laugh with Cygnus in particular, who loathes Mudbloods more even than Tom himself does.

He leaves in a blaze of glory, accolades dripping from his fingers, but he cannot take any of the lucrative positions offered to him - no, he and Mother have discussed this at great length, and because her business has expanded far beyond just potions, to all manner of things that are banned in Hogwarts. Mother is stronger now than she has ever been, able to afford to dress as befits her station, their lineage, and a week after Tom leaves Hogwarts (he knows without waiting for the owl that he has received all Os in his N.E.W.T.s) Mother packs him off with a magnificent amount of money, new boots of the softest leather he's ever felt, and a suitcase packed with all manner of interesting and nasty things that will probably be useful on his travels.

Professor Slughorn gave him a great deal to think about, so he leaves and travels and studies with people that Dumbledore would disapprove of and learns much, so much.

He writes often to Mother, and he sends interesting trinkets and rare ingredients back to her via trusted channels - trusted, because even at just twenty years of age Tom's moniker of choice has a reputation that many know to fear, and with fear comes obedience.

* * *

Tom returns to Hogwarts before going home to visit Mother at the shop - and Dumbledore refuses him the job he presently wants more than anything in the world. Who is there better qualified to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts than him, after all?

Of course, that old fool doesn't know anything about Tom, not really. Mother reminds him that he's cleverer than Dumbledore could ever dream of being, and with that in mind, he sweeps the new cloak of heavy black cloth that she made for him (which means it is made of a great deal more than just black cloth), shoulders the rucksack she packed so cleverly for him, kisses her on the cheek and smiles when she clutches her forearm tight, just over the curling lines of black ink that stand so dark against her pale skin.

"I will return," he promises. "Make sure that the others receive their mark, won't you? It is the only way to ensure their loyalty, to brand them."

Mother's smile is edged with that too-sharp brightness in her eyes.

"My clever boy," she says, reaching up to cup his face in her hands for a moment. "My _brilliant _boy."


	2. To the grave

The graveyard is near to silent, but for Tom's squalling - Merope cradles her boy in her arms, cooing down at him and smiling. She can hardly remember the last time he allowed her to hold him - he would have been small, barely more than a baby. Maybe the last time was the night she killed _him _and his parents, when _he _screamed and cowered before her and held out those hilarious trinkets that the Muggles thought protected them from magic. He had screamed like that the night she had finally stopped giving him the Amortentia, too, screamed and called her a whore and a madwoman and a bitch, and she'd realised then that not a single one of the soft words and gentle touches had been real.

_He_ had made certain that she knew the truth, when he cut her cheek with that fancy golden ring of his. She'd taken that ring, once she'd killed him, and melted it down into a pretty pair of earrings that she had kept carefully hidden until after Morfin's death.

She wonders, sometimes, if Tom knows the significance of the earrings she wears so often. If not, it is one of the very few things her boy does not know.

Soon, soon she will have him back, her Tom _truly _returned to her, and that makes all these years of failure fade from her memory, fade to that dark place where _his _face when she weaned him off the potions lingers despite her best efforts to modify her memory. She would have asked Tom, because while she is peerless when it comes to brewing potions (old Slughorn had always loved her, at least in class,because she was not wealthy and powerful and beautiful and charasmatic enough for him to bring into his little circle) and forging a very specific sort of enchantment, crafting spells into jewels and silver and gold, there is not a single person on earth who could hope to match her Tom's skill with other people's minds.

The tattoo on her forearm feels almost warm, and she knows that if she shakes back her sleeve, it will be darker than it has in years. She does not shake back her sleeve, of course, because to do so she would need to pass Tom to that snivelling _incompetent, _Wormtail, and that she will not do. She is the only one Tom can truly trust, the only one he _does_ truly trust, and she will not let him down so entirely.

Still, the thought makes her smile in the shadow of her hood. She has not smiled in such a long time, but now, with Tom in her arms, she can hardly stop herself.

When the time comes, she is the one to step forward and wrap Tom in soft robes, just as she bundled him up in a soft blanket when he was born the first time. He was beautiful then, too, and pure in a different sort of way. She does not think that she could possibly prefer one aspect of him over another, and that makes her smile again.

"Mother," he says, and she blinks away exultant tears and examines his new face. There is nothing of _him _there, and for the first time she thinks that perhaps Tom is truly himself, cleaned of _his _taint.

One of her few true regrets has always been that Tom does not have the blood status he deserves.

It is peaceful here, standing on _his _grave, Wormtail weeping pathetically off to one side and the boy who nearly took her Tom from her tied to _his_ gravestone. Merope touches Tom's new features, traces them with the tips of her fingers until she is satisfied that he is here, and that he is alive and real. His skin is cool and smooth under her hands, and he waits patiently as she learns this new face of his. He touches the scar on her left cheek where _he _hit her, all that time ago, and the one on her throat where Morfin tried to strangle her, and there is a peculiar, beatific sort of peace in Tom's eyes that pleases her.

"You look very striking," she tells him. "And still so very clever, sweet boy."

He smiles at that, and while he deals with Wormtail (a gleaming silver hand, too good for the cretin) Merope tidies herself up - she pushes back her hood, takes an extra handful of pins from a pocket and tucks them into her hair, which shines ghostly pale in the bright moonlight.

"Your hair," Tom notes in surprise when she steps forward and offers him her bare forearm, Dark Mark rich and black against her skin, and the pain when he presses his finger to the ink is a thrill, because it is proof that he is alive. Merope would gladly have given her hand, her bone, her blood, but Tom has never seen her as a servant in the way as he saw his followers, and the rest _had _to be unwillingly given, forcibly taken. "I think it suits you very well, Mother. It is... Regal."

The scum - for that is what they are, those who turned cloak when Tom fell because of the boy - simper and sigh and murmur _my lord _to Tom and _my lady _to Merope, even those who came into her shop on Knockturn Alley and behaved as though they knew not who she truly was, and when the time comes for Tom's victory, Merope smiles and waits and knows that her boy-

* * *

Once, when Tom was just a boy, Merope wondered what her life would have been without him.

She would not have survived without him, she knows - it was Tom who gave her the strength to survive when her shame near overwhelmed her after _his _desertion, Tom who made her brave enough to kill her father, Tom who killed Morfin, Tom who believed in her talents and encouraged her to open her shop.

Tom is a great mind - such people are rare, Merope knows, and many who consider themselves as such are great _fools, _but Tom is one of those brilliant rarities, an anomaly, almost, and that is why she has always believed in him, his deeds and words alike ringing with a solemn sort of truth from he was barely more than a baby.

Those years before their Return were hard - Merope did whatever was necessary to ensure that her Tom had everything he needed, food and shelter and as much comfort as he could want, really, but Muggles were the ones who most readily parted with their money, and eventually she could no longer bare to have even one more Muggle touch her, not after all that _he _had done to her.

Her home was an easier place with Father gone - Morfin was drunk and stupid, one usually and the other always, and easily manipulated to stay away from Tom, mostly to forget that her boy was even there. She assured him of her loyalty by directing him to the Riddle House, and together they had laughed and toasted _his _death.

Morfin was not so bad without Father there, because without Father he was merely a directionless brute - Merope directed him, and used him as a distraction from her Tom, to give her boy time to grow and mature and become what she has always known he was meant to be.

It has always amused her that Tom was the one to kill Morfin, and that he did it for _her, _because the only real reason she had for keeping Morfin alive was because he was an unwitting (and unreliable, in some ways) protection for Tom, and in removing that shield Tom proved that he had no need of it anymore, not really.

He always has been clever, like her.

* * *

The woods are peaceful, just as the graveyard was the last time she saw the boy. Tom is anxious - his precious soul is being chipped away at, every injury striking him harder, and Merope strokes Nagini's head and, while Tom is distracted in exulting over the boy's death, she carefully wreathes another layer of protection around this most valuable of snakes.

Tom catches her eye and offers her his arm as they begin to make their way from the forest, and she smiles proudly and links her elbow with his - her charming boy, so well-mannered.

She smiles wider when she sees the ruin Hogwarts has become - Tom will restore it, she knows, and _fix _it, remove the lesser houses.

The children - the traitors, who cannot see the wonder their beloved school can yet become - stand defiant with their fool parents, but there is time to make them see the truth.

Now that that boy is dead, Tom has all the time in the world.


End file.
